Low Hum

"I wanted to feel her touch my shoulder blade"
There was an aching in her back, and nothing
felt right.
Nothing would soothe this pain like the way
her touch could.
She attempted to think of the brief passing moments of days
gone by, the brief passing moments when she did feel her touch.
Soft and gentle.
The cool breeze tries to talk me out of things,
the breeze will kill me.
There is no cure, for the knot in my stomach.
The breeze, like the need for her touch,
is what compels me.
Hopeless and at my end.
I want to see her,
While the cicadas crescendo in unison
to the crickets low hum.
Like children of a different time,
she kisses her hand.
And floating along between breaths,
gently dances with her lover
along the grass among the billowing cotton falling from the trees.
It is a tall tale that we live, that I live.
Next to her, pretending that it's alright, for her.
That she couldn't love her, that I shouldn't love her.
Producing an ache, I am paralyzed by her.
It's like a breath with help and feeling it
reach to every fiber I'm made of.
I want to feel her glance, her smile, her breath, her reach,
her movement.

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Editor’s Note

The number one question our editors receive is—what do the editors and judges look for when judging the contest? The number one answer we give is creativity. Unlike prose, writing composed in everyday language, poetry is considered a creative art and requires a different type of effort and a certain level of depth. Of the thousands of poems entered in each contest, the ones that catch our judges’ eyes are the ones that remove us, even just slightly, from the scope of everyday life by using language that is interesting, specific, vivid, obscure, compelling, figurative, and so on. Oftentimes, poems are pulled aside for a second look based simply on certain words that intrigued the reader. So first and foremost, be sure your poetry is written using creative language. Take general ideas and make them personal. In his infamous book De/Compositions: 101 Good Poems Gone Wrong, W. D. Snodgrass imparts, “We cannot honestly discuss or represent our lives, any more than our poems, without using ideational language.”